We’ve all heard the joke. What’s coyote ugly? That’s when you wake up with an extremely ugly person in bed lying on your arm. After a night of heavy drinking. You’re fairly certain you had sex. You’re not 100% sure because you can’t remember anything. But here the two of you are. Naked. The circumstantial evidence is pretty damning. You want to get out. Fast. Instead of waking your lover, you chew your arm off so you can slip away quietly. Like a coyote will do if caught in a steel-jaw trap.

The lesson here is, of course, to drink in moderation. For when we drink to excess, we sometimes do things we wouldn’t normally do sober. But we do. Drink to excess. And get drunk. And, boy, when we do, some of us really do. Make a real mess of their lives, too. You see, drunken husbands do not make happy wives. Or good fathers. Especially when drunken husbands beat up their wives, spend their paychecks at the corner saloon, have sex with prostitutes and catch syphilis (which they then pass on to their wives and soon to be born children).

For these reasons, wives have been behind various temperance movements throughout history. And they have had modest success. If you ever found yourself in a dry county thirsting for an adult beverage, you can thank these ladies. But Prohibition? That’s a different story. That took Big Government. The Progressives. Who thought they knew best what was for the common good.

DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO

Wives have suffered unfairly from the affects of alcohol. But during the 19th century, their power was limited. They had to rely on grass-roots movements. And their churches. Which had moral authority as we were much more religious back then. Most drunken husbands knew they were behaving poorly. When sober. But things changed in the 20th century. The powers of the government grew. This power and new sciences (like eugenics) made some believe they could make a better society by passing enlightened laws. (And make better people in the case of eugenics).

We call it social engineering. Using the power of the state to change human behavior. Well, change it for those who are not apparatchiks of the state. The elite Progressives, including the ladies of high society, still drank. For it wasn’t illegal to drink adult beverages. Only to manufacture, sell, or transport them. So it was the poorer elements of society who felt the impact of Prohibition. And the immigrants. Who the social elites blamed for all the drinking woes. For people in their strata of society didn’t have drinking problems. So there was no reason to punish them. The elites. They weren’t the problem. It was the poor. And the immigrants. They’re the ones government needed to keep from drinking themselves to ruin.

So while the elites still enjoyed their intoxicating beverages in the safety of their mansions and clubs, Al Capone and other bootleggers fought for turf. For control of the illegal liquor trade. Shooting each other with Thompson Machine Guns in our public streets. That’s a .45 caliber round. It makes big holes. And shatters bone. A lot of these rounds were flying through our public streets. And they hit more than just gangsters.

Prohibition modified some behavior. But at great cost. Congress repealed it in 1933. In part to stem the liquor violence. And part because the Great Depression was too depressing sober.

JUST SAY NO

I once worked at a small office in a bad part of town. One day a woman knocked on the door. She asked if that ‘short guy’ that opens the gates in the morning was around. I said no. Then she asked me if I wanted to have a little fun. I said, “Thank you, but no.” My secretary had come to the door while I was talking to her. After I closed the door, she told me that woman just lost a lot of weight. And that she probably had AIDS.

Women like her were common in the neighborhood. They sold sex for drug money. When they weren’t with a John they were getting high. Men, too. One time, this 6-foot-plus behemoth in a skirt was walking in the street shouting something incoherent. Our driver discovered he was a guy. When he lunged through his open window while turning at the corner. I don’t know what scared him more. The assault. Or the fact that she was a he.

By the way, that short guy that opens the gates? He was married. And had a couple of daughters. God only knows what he gave his wife.

Drug addiction is not good. No one’s life ever got better by being addicted to drugs. None of these people ever planned on drug addiction. It just happened. Somehow. One day you’re just partying with some friends. Then the next thing you know you’re turning tricks or stealing to support your habit. If you have money it’s a different story. Then you can party until you kill yourself. John Belushi overdosed from a heroin/cocaine cocktail called a speedball. Chris Farley, too. It’s unlikely that the speedball was their first high. They probably started out with something less potent. Like marijuana. The entry drug of choice. Only when that drug loses its charm do people step up to something a little more potent.

Of course, if you don’t start, chances are you won’t move up to something more potent. This was the idea behind Nancy Reagan’s anti-drug program. Stop the kids from starting. To resist peer pressure. To just say no. Her program did modify some behavior. Kids did use fewer drugs. But she was Ronald Reagan’s wife. The Left didn’t like him. Or her. So they ridiculed her program as being simplistic. Discontinued it. And drug use by kids increased.

GANGSTA’S PARADISE

Like Capone and his fellow bootleggers, the illegal drug trade is controlled by gangs. And they, too, fight over turf. But those involved at the street level of the drug trade today are a lot younger. During the days of Prohibition, kids played with toy guns. Today, they’re playing with real guns. Not so much playing but killing each other. And innocent bystanders. In drive-by shootings. Why? Because drugs get you money. And money gets you power. Put all that together and it’s very seductive to kids from broken homes in the hood. Who have nothing. And have nothing to lose. It’s almost romantic. Fighting. And dying. A regular gangster. Living in a gangster paradise.

Once in, though, it’s hard to get out. The song Gangsta’s Paradise (by Coolio featuring L.V. from the 1995 Movie Dangerous Minds) laments about that paradise. “Tell me why are we so blind to see. That the ones we hurt are you and me.”

You get higher up in the echelon and the violence gets worse. You can see that on America’s southern border. And further south. Kidnappings. Beheadings. And other unspeakable things. Because of the big money in illegal drugs. Like there was in bootlegging. Make something illegal that people still want and will buy, and that something becomes a very profitable commodity indeed.

DAMNED IF YOU DO, DAMNED IF YOU DON’T

So what’s the answer? What is the best course of action for the common good? We can keep drugs illegal. And continue to fight the war on drugs. And watch the violence escalate as people fight to control this illicit trade. Or we can decriminalize drugs. Make them easily accessible. And cheap. The drug gangs would go the way of the bootlegger gangs. And the crack/meth whore in the street won’t have to perform as many sexual acts to support her habit.

Alcohol is legal today. And there are a lot of social costs because of that. But the majority of people who do drink are not driving under the influence or beating their wives. Or getting syphilis from a prostitute hanging out at the corner saloon. Wouldn’t it be the same for drugs?

Kids drink. Even though they can’t legally buy alcohol. But the worse thing they can do is kill someone while driving a car. Or get killed in a car driven by another drunken kid. Or kill themselves from binge drinking. Or get pregnant because they got drunk at a party. Or get infected with a venereal disease because they got drunk at a party and had sex. These are very bad things. But they’re not an addiction. Sure, you can become an alcoholic, but a lot of kids don’t like the taste of the adult beverages they’re consuming. They’re just doing it for the party buzz. And vomiting after. It takes awhile, for some, to get over that hump where those awful tasting beverages don’t taste so awful anymore. But drugs? They’re tasteless. There isn’t a delivery system ‘hump’ to get over. Which makes the addiction process that much easier. And where there is only one kind of drunk, there are all sorts of highs. New and different drugs to explore. When you get bored with the drug du jour. So, no. It probably wouldn’t be the same with alcohol. It would probably be worse.

THE LESSER OF EVILS

Often the choice comes down to a lesser of evils. So, to do what is best for the common good, we just need to determine which is the lesser evil. So which is worse? The violence from trying to keep something illegal? Or the social costs of decriminalizing something that is already causing a lot of harm while being illegal? It comes down to what you, as an individual, think. And that is, must be, a subjective decision. And therein lays the problem of choosing what is best for the common good. It’s an opinion. Choices aren’t right or wrong. There’re just different opinions.

And that’s why so few can agree on what is best for the common good. Different people think different things are better. And different things are worse. And, at best, they can agree to disagree.